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Here's a fun interview with D.E.L. Connor Author of the Spirit Warriors Young Adult series. Enjoy!  Lucy, Thank you for the opportunity! Q: Tell us about your book The Spirit Warriors is a Young Adult, fantasy romance about a group of friends who must destroy an ancient Native American evil spirit, the machayiwiw, in order to save their future. Luckily for them, they have the power to move their spirits into animals; a grizzly, a coyote, a mountain lion, a mustang, and an osprey. Along the way they find first love, feel the cold sting of loss, and discover the value of friendship. If only they knew what body the machayiwiw was inhabiting! Q: I love the natural themes you've developed within the series and the connection with the animals. What inspired you to write the Spirit Warriors series? I was born in South Dakota and raised in Eastern Montana, an area awash with mysticism and magic. The Battle of Little Bighorn occurred in Eastern Montana and I grew up immersed in Montanan and Native American history. The idea for this story has been in my head for a long time and evolved over the years. I wrote a short story about a section of the story line and the professor loved it, but deemed it as "too dark" for that period in time. I'm thankful for J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyers and others who forged the trail for dark YA stories Q: Is the Spirit Warriors series your first work of fiction? If not, please tell us a little about your first book/series. The Spirit Warriors is my first book baby. I call them babies. Each one is birthed after a long and arduous gestation period, and then loved beyond belief! Q: When I read the books I see subjects, themes and story lines that could appeal to many different kinds of readers. Who is your primary audience for series? I wrote the series with a Young Adult audience in mind. I wanted to touch on diversity and respect for others no matter what they believe, look like, or what their sexual preference is. It breaks my heart to hear about kids who kill themselves because they are different. We are all different! That's what makes us special. In Spirit Warriors: The Concealing, Emme doesn't understand why the chickens find another chicken with a flaw and peck it to death.I guess I don't either, but I do know this. We can get through all the tribulations of life with the help of our friends and people who love us. Stand up for your friends and protect your friendships. There is no greater love. Q: Please tell us about yourself.You probably wouldn't have guessed this, but I am a college professor in my day job, and I don't teach liberal arts! I teach nursing. I am a nurse and also a nurse practitioner. I obtained my PhD in nursing and after I finished that I had a 'now what' moment. My crazy mind said, "finish your book and see what happens." I enjoy reading, gardening, running like a turtle, and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee and chocolate! Preferably together. Q: Have you been writing for a long time? Since I was a child. I used to make up stories about the ingredients listed on the cereal box! I wrote a lot of poetry when I was a teenager and then added to it as I grew older. Notice I didn't say I grew up. I think I just grew older. Q: How much time per week do you spend writing/editing your work? Not as much as I would like. My other jobs take up a huge amount of my time. If I am not editing, I try to write a 1,000 words a day on whatever I am working on. Q: What are you working on at the moment? I am half way through book 4 Spirit Warriors:The Lamenting. Book 3 Spirit Warriors:The Burning is in line editing and should be out late spring of 2015. This summer I will work on a women's Southern romance fiction called Damn you Maude Lobb.Then back to Book 5 the final book in the Spirit Warriors series. I may end up doing a prequel to the Spirit Warriors Saga. Stay tuned at www.dellaconnor.com Thank you so much for the fun interview questions! Good luck on your new book! :) Della
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 Strong title, I know, but it does and I'll tell you why. First of all, here's what the state says the Pass is for: http://discoverpass.wa.gov/ . While I think the idea is novel, I do not think it is necessary. First of all any good hiker, backpacker, lover of Creation knows you're supposed to leave the place better than you found it. We, as responsible citizens should be able to clean up after ourselves. Should we, the citizens not, we should be fined for littering, and desecration of public lands. We should not have to pay for what we already do. Secondly, though it's only $30.. it's $30! That adds up. You can't honestly tell me they can't maintain with a smaller budged? But if they can't think of all the manpower at the government's fingertips in the way of it's citizens. How about instead of forcing a fee on the FREE citizens of America, you offer them a choice. Why don't we have a choice to work for the pass or purchase it. I personally would love to get together with other nature lovers and clean-up, maintain or improve state lands and trails. Amongst the common citizens who use the public lands are the highly skilled individuals. I'm sure many in construction, road building, land and facilities maintenance, landscaping, restoration and general labor would be happy to volunteer a fair amount of work/time to receive a pass to lands we're, by rights as American citizens, allowed access to. The pass is ridiculous, the reasoning -- propaganda to take your money, the need only applies to those citizens unwilling to work to help maintain public lands themselves. Give US the choice to work/volunteer or pay for the Pass, then the Pass is legal. That is all for today's rant! 
 Tess Thompson is a mother and writer. She’s also a Zumba dancing queen, though the wearing of the crown is reserved for invitation-only appearances. Her creative life began as an actress, director and playwright but found her true calling in narrative fiction, specifically Women’s Fiction.
 My Work-out Wednesday posts will be as much for me as for any readers. I'd like to share what I know and also share what I learn. I have a long way to go on my fitness journey but have also come a long way and I like talking about it so here's my first Work-out Wednesday post! And, please, please, please comment and share if you have any input, I LOVE LEARNING!
This week will be an ode to the WOD. What a WODerful Wednesday it was! What's a WOD you ask? Well, let me school ya, cause I didn't know at first either. I can only assume the peeps who created the acronym weren't too concerned with the fact that it's not actually an acronym at all. W.O.D. stands for Workout Of the Day. The poor little "t" in the was left out, why, I don't know, when the Of got to be included, but I don't argue with the muscles that came before me, I just go with the flow :) And that's what a WOD is; a prescribed Work-out Of the Day. It's a set of exercises, usually 4-6 different exercises that you do 4-7 times for the prescribed amount of time or reps (repetitions of the same exercise in a row). At our gym we don't have the snatching, jerking, cleaning and lifting in our WODs like crossfit gyms, we stick to exercises with free weights and body strength and cardio, the good stuff but we also have weights for lifting available. BTW, CrosSport in Wenatchee is the BEST gym on the planet, trust me I know ( guess that was my ode to my gym :). That's all I got this week. In an effort to get more posts onto my blog weekly, I've decided to add a few things to the list. I'm fully aware this is a lofty goal considering that I barely post once every ten days now, but I'm going to give it a shot.
Here's the plan... I'm going to do my personal post of whatever I want somewhere around once a week (this post qualifies as that post this week-- does that make sense?). See my 50 Shades trashing below... I'm also going to add in a book review a week (btw, I have a good one coming up, Duet for Three Hands by Tess Thompson). I admit, I have an advantage at this because I can listen to books off and on at work and, honestly, get most my reading in that way. It does feel a little like cheating to listen to books, but hey... at least I'm reading, right?! I'm going to TRY and add in a work-out post of some sort each week. I'm worried about this one in particular because I still can't figure out how to post my own dang videos... so they'll probably be more photo than video but if anyone out there knows how to get video to work on Weebly, let me know and I'll love you forever! NOW onto my opinion of the week. So here's my disclaimer. When people first started talking about 50 Shades I largely ignored it. Why? Why!? Because anyone who gets off on purposely causing pain isn't someone I can drool over no matter how hot or rich he is. It's sick and disgusting and quite frankly makes my stomach turn. How can someone who "loves" someone actually get pleasure in causing their partner pain? I wrote it off. Maybe it's because there is violence and sexual abuse in my past. Maybe it's because I saw the marks a man that "loved" my mom left on her. Maybe it's my conservative background... whatever it was, the 50 Shades whirlwind didn't interest me at all. But it didn't go away. Ladies kept talking about it. As an aspiring author I thought that I had to respect anyone who could write a book that could captivate so many. I decided to take the 50 Shades plunge to rate my competition and to see what all the buzz was about. I borrowed the book from someone and dived in. I got to the pain and I was done. I have no desire in finishing the story...ever. It's not a story it's raunchy sex. I'm a novice author BUT I'm a voracious reader and the characters were flimsy, the dialog a joke, and the setting completely unrealistic. But all that aside, I kept reading, wanting to see what the other ladies saw. I didn't get it. it's not love, it's not any kind of sex I want to read or have a part of. Don't get me wrong I LOVE sex, I write sex scenes and I think crazy good sex is where it's at, but there's no room for purposely causing someone pain in my book or any book I want to read. It's not love, true love protects, true love perseveres, true love builds up, it doesn't hurt, it doesn't demand submission, it gives selflessly and receives the same in return. It is passionate, it is a rush of body and mind and soul intertwining in a frenzy of physical and emotional energy but it is not pain. I chose not to finish the first book, let alone the rest. I choose not to watch the movies. I'm so done with 50 Shades!!!! I'm sad for E.L. James who wrote the stories but in an interview admits that she hopes her sons never read it. I'm sad for the actress that played Anna that doesn't want her family to watch the movie. I'm sad that people would sell out for fame and money. I'm sad that so many are turned on by it. I don't get it. I will make it my duty to clean up the sex scenes in books, to write intimate, passionate, hot, lusty sex scenes that are appropriate and full of safe love, where the only screams are from pleasure and joy, not from pain. So there... that's my opinion on that. |
